Modeling the Effect of Asymptomatic Cases, Social Distancing, and Lockdowns in the First and Second waves of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Case Study of Italy

Abstract

The SEIR model of COVID-19 is developed to investigate the roles of physical distancing, lockdowns, and asymptomatic cases in Italy. In doing so, two types of policies including behavioral measures and lockdown measures are embedded in the model. Compared with existing models, the model successfully reproduces similar multiple observed outputs such as infected and recovered patients in Italy by July 2020. This study concludes that the first policy is important once the number of infected cases is relatively low. However, once the number of infected cases is too high, so the society cannot identify infected and disinfected people, the second policy must be applied soon. It is thus this study suggests that relaxed lockdowns lead to the second wave of the COVID-19 around the world. It is hoped that the model can enhance our understanding of the roles of behavioral measures, lockdowns, and undocumented cases, so-called asymptomatic cases, on the COVID-19 flow. Doi: 10.28991/SciMedJ-2021-0303-8 Full Text: PDF